Style Spy DIY -- Get Thee Gone, Wench!

A problem child from Style Spy's closet:

(Yes, the face was that bad. No makeup, crazy post-run, pre-shower hair. It's hard enough for me to show you any photos of me, let alone the ones where I look like a designer-clad escapee from a prison camp. So please indulge me.)

I've written about this McQ dress before, about how it's a little challenging but I still love it. And those things are both true, but I was rifling around in my closet this weekend (I am purging relentlessly -- look out for more Shop the Closet opportunities) and I saw it hanging there and realized I've worn this dress once, maybe twice. Which is a crying shame because one of the best things about it is the fabric -- a cool, breezy, supersoft cotton voile that is absolutely perfect for the Dante-esque weather we continue to have here in Austin this summer.

So I took it out & put it on, trying to decide if I wanted to keep it or if there was anything that could be done to make it a bit more wearable. I looked in the mirror and asked, "What is it about this dress that makes it user-unfriendly?"

The answer, of course, was the neckline. I love the asymmetrical pick-ups of the skirt, and I don't mind the Big! Blue! Stripes! because we all know how I feel about color. But the big ol' ruffle with the off-the-shoulder action and the foofy, poofy sleeves combine to make it, let's be honest, decidedly wench-y.

Style Spy does not do Wench.

Safe to say, any character AT ALL you might find at Ye Olde Renaissance Faire is not a look I want to be emulating at any time, ever. EVER. (And neither should you, unless you are actually employed by an actual Renn Fest.)

So in order to save this dress I decided I need to get rid of the ruffle and tone down the sleeves, and also fix the sliding off my shoulder problem. And so I did:


The ruffle wasn't actually that hard to take care of -- I turned it under like a facing, stitched it down, then trimmed off the fabric. I added ribbon ties to the back in order to keep the neckline together -- the bonus of that was I actually really like the kind of drapey cowl effect it creates in the back. The sleeves were a much bigger PITA, it turns out. Somehow, the geometry of this dress is really wonky and my usual tricks for dealing with sleeves (like folding the dress in half to measure) didn't really pan out. There was a lot of eyeballing that went on. Happily, the dress is pretty loosey-goosey, because I still don't think they're exactly even.

(I'm talking to Shine, not imaginary friends.)

Here I stuck a sweet little vintage half-slip under it, so that the adorable crystal-pleated flounce on the bottom peeked out. Just for giggles. And here's how the dress looked when it went out for Sunday evening moules et vin -- with a hat & various pieces of jewelry:

(Canvas & raffia platform wedges from Banana Republic that I bought for a song last summer and am going to wear to shreds, I should have bought two pairs; hat from April Cornell children's wear --yep, seriously -- and sweetest little antique porcelain flower pin ever found at Antique Mall a few years ago for something like 5 bucks. Bangles from various places -- I just scoop 'em up whenever I find some in colors I like.)

So there ya go. I'm pretty tickled about this little project. I was very hesitant to embark upon it because... well, who am I to second-guess Alexander McQueen? On the other hand, I wasn't wearing it, and if someone like me, who is fairly fashion-adventurous, wasn't wearing it, it didn't seem likely that someone was going to see its inherent magic on the small screen if I listed it on eBay and take it off my hands. I really had nothing to lose.

I know this is the sort of dress that, for some people, no amount of alterations is going to make tolerable. But I don't dress for those people. I dress for me, and for the imaginary coterie of street style photographers and fashion editors that live in my head. (Yeah, it's crowded in there.) Some will probably quibble with the volume of the dress, saying it looks bulky. In response to that criticism I have to say that still pictures don't do it justice -- a lot of this dress is about the movement. Besides: in shoes like the platforms I'm wearing in these photos I'm almost six feet tall -- I can wear the bulk without being swallowed. If I were a smaller person, yes, this dress would probably be too much for me.

So what do you think? An improvement? Or do you think it's a lost cause? Should I have left it alone? Burned it? What? Tell me what you think!



Images: Style Spy

Pretty For Friday -- July 24

Style Spy has a birthday coming up, so I'm keeping my eye peeled for this year's birthday suit. I usually use my birthday as an excuse to buy myself a dress of some sort that I wouldn't ordinarily be able to justify. Of course, I'm still working on a tight budget, so I'm looking at sale stuff.

I'm really taken with this

I love the simplicity of the shape, I love the one shoulder thing, and I lovelovelove all that gorgeous color. It's so hard to find a print or patterned dress that isn't awful or kitschy, and I do love color. And I think that something like this is a year-'round dress, if you live in a climate like mine. So I really like this.



But I dunno. Maybe I'll skip the dress and get myself a really astonishing pair of shoes, like these Haider Ackermann boots.

These make my heart go pitter-pat, I tell ya. They look a little weird, I know, and suede boots are the absolute last thing I should be looking at during a record-breaking summer in Austin, (Oh. My. God, y'all -- you cannot BELIEVE how hot it's been.) but something about these just really, really speaks to me. Lordamercy, those are cool. I would wear those with EVERYTHING. (And in case anyone is wondering -- size 39, please.)

Oh, I'm sure I'll see lots more stuff I'm interested in -- there's no hurry, and half the fun is the hunt, of course. (Honestly, where I'm concerned, it may be more than half the fun.)

Have a good weekend, everyone!

A Whim and A Sale Code

Do you like these little sandals?

Yeah, me too. And I've on several occasions this summer thought, "Hmph. What I really need is some little flat gold sandals." So I think I would definitely get some use out of these. Plus -- super cheap! And even cheaper because Piperlime has a special sale code today that takes 20% off all their sale shoes -- enter JUST4U at the checkout.

Now, we all know I like a nice pair of shoes, and that my tastes do ordinarily run to the spendy. But I am also the proud owner of several pairs of mid- and low-range shoes that have given yeoman's service and garnered me plenty of compliments. I'm not that much of a snob. And the shoes above, after the sale & the code & sales tax, top out at under 27 bucks. That seems llike a very reasonable amount for a little mid-week pick-me-up. Plus, Piperlime does free shipping & returns; so if they don't work, no harm done.

So I ordered 'em. (You can, too, just click on the photo.) I'll let you know how they work out.

I Do Not Think It Will Smell Good

Rumor has it that Amy Winehouse wants to license her name to create a celebrity perfume.

Okay, IF they made the bottle in the shape of a hip flask and called the stuff "Skanque," it would at least be funny. Otherwise? My friends, there is not enough jasmine in all the world...


Image: Boston.com

Hemming and Hawing

My apologies, but herewith follows yet more pictures of me in clothes. Which is probably tiresome, but better than pictures of me out of clothes, wouldn't you agree?

It started out like this:

Silk burnout bias-cut slip dress.

I've had this dress forever. I bought it years ago, wore it I don't even remember where even though I shouldn't have because I was too heavy & pear-shaped for it, gained even more weight and couldn't fit into it, held onto it because the color is so gorgeous and the fabric is so nice, and then, even after I was thin enough to wear it again, never took it out of the closet because it's floor-length. I know patio dresses are all the rage right now, but I'm already oooooooover that look and besides, the fabric of this is too dressy for it to be long and casual.

So I decided to shorten it. No sweat, right? Just chop it off, pin it up, sew it. I've hemmed hundreds of garments (probably) in my life, this should be a piece of cake.

HAH!

Not so much. Bias-cut + very sheer silk fabric + sheer silk lining = hair-pulling, frustrated, hem-pinning madness. Eventually I gave up and I took it over to my mom's house to have her do it, and after standing on her cedar chest for a while and klonking my head on the ceiling fan (we turned it off first, don't worry!) multiple times while she crouched at my feet trying to pin it, I realized this was a job for a professional. (There is no need to torment my mother like that, she is a perfectly nice lady.)

I headed over to Exclusive Alterations here in Austin, which is where I take all of my tailoring, and once again they did me right. (And in my defense, even the pros were grinding their teeth a little -- they had to re-do a bit of the hem in the back where the lining peeked out. So I don't feel so bad about not being able to manage it. And they did not, of course, charge to make the adjustment.)

See? Now it's a nice, flippy-skirted little slip dress that I can wear in multiple ways. I could leave it like that and stick on a pair of fancy shoes and be all sexy-salsa-dancing Style Spy, or I could do something like this:

(I am highly amused by the fact that I somehow managed to exactly re-create the same pose in these last two photos. That is HILARIOUS.)

I slapped on a double-wrap red patent belt, then my fantastic vintage lace vest, along with my adorable Stuart Weitzman patent flats, and went off to a baby shower brunch for a dear friend. While there, a friend said, "Look at you! How on earth did you come up with... this?" (Accompanied by that circling-finger gesture like you're drawing an imaginary ring around the person.) I think she meant it as a compliment, judging by her tone -- at least I hope so.

And I'll tell you how on earth I came up with "this": I wanted to make more of a waist on the dress because I didn't feel like putting on a giant padded strapless bra, so that's why the belt. The vest was another way to balance out the top half a little more (I'm slim, but I'm still a pear) and also to alleviate the bareness, which seemed a bit much for a Saturday brunch.

The moral of this story? If there is something in your closet that you're not wearing but hanging onto, ask yourself why. Is it the fabric? The color? Does this garment really, truly have potential, or does it just carry fond memories that you don't want to part with? If it has good bones, be creative. Can the design features that might be dating the look be removed? You can take those gigantic 80's puffed sleeves off a lot of things, and some collars can be removed -- not to mention changing out buttons or narrowing a skirt or hemming a pair of bell-bottoms into bermudas and other easy fixes. Follow this link to see a great example & get Thumbelina's excellent advice on alterations.

Part B of the moral, of course, is to seek out a good tailor. There are few things more frustrating to me than folks who refuse to avail themselves of this service. Yes, it costs a little money. But could I have bought that dress for what it cost me to have it hemmed? No, I most certainly could not. And now I have a garment I really love and am going to wear instead of a garment I loved and let hang in the closet. It was money well-spent.

How about you guys? Anyone have a good creative alteration story? I'd love to hear it!


Images: Style Spy

Shop the Closet!

Need shoes? That's great, 'cause I'm selling some more.



GORGEOUS pale pink Ted Baker sandals. Worn once. Ostensibly a size 9, in reality a 9.5 or 10. $60. Go here for details.





Beautiful, classic, NEVER-WORN ivory Pollini sandals, size 39.5. Fantastic shoes. 70 bucks. Check them out here.

One of the most perfect party dresses I have ever bought:


Gorgeous red David Meister that I promise will get you noticed -- I got soooooo many compliments on this dress. $60. Details are here.


Another beautiful dress -- teal chiffon & velvet Maria Bianca Nero, size M. Never worn. Lovely, lovely dress. $65. Details here.

Style Spy DIY -- Dior Edition

So. after ooh-ing and ahh-ing (and quite frankly drooling all over my keyboard -- what a mess!) at the Dior Haute Couture, I decided I needed to get a little vintage lingerie into my life. There's all kinds of sheerness and lace and lingerie-inspired stuff going on in fashion right now and I wanted to get in on it.

I decided not to take this route:

Because, while it certainly is wonderful, I don't think even I want that much attention. Also -- sitting down. Yikes.

What I did come across was this:


Once again, Connie Day, at the Antique Mall here in Austin, comes through for me. Gorgeous, gorgeous thing.

Let me just explain that the DIY part of this endeavor was not limited to browsing around in the air-conditioned comfort of the Antique Mall looking at beautiful things. This vintage long-line bra is in amazing condition. Except. The foam rubber padding that lined the cups had hardened and then disintegrated. It was like two bags of coal dust, or crumbled charcoal. An hellacious mess, is what it was, that left me gritty all over my hands and black under my fingernails and around my cuticles whenever I handled the thing. I had to split open the seams on the back side of the cups and scoop all that stuff out with a stiff brush and my increasingly-filthy fingers. It took forever, and it was a gigantic pain in the ass, frankly, not to mention a hideous mess. And then the alterations had to begin. Because this little item is a 36C, the cups were way too big for me, even over clothing. (Because it is a vintage 36C, the bodice, on the other hand, fits me like a glove. Numbers, apparently, were smaller in the 50's. Mysterious.) I had to basically remove the top half of the cups, take in a couple of darts along the sides next to the underwire, and then re-apply the trim that I removed from the original edge. That was much less a pain in the ass, but it took a while. Worth it, however, because it's just fantastic-looking.

First, inspired by this,

I went for a day look. Well, maybe not a day look, per se. Can it really be called "daywear" if there's a visible lingerie component? Probably not. At any rate, I came up with this:

(Happier than I look, I promise.)

This is all stuff that was already in my closet -- Theory blouse, super-basic high-waisted Kay Unger pencil skirt, Cole Haan calf-hair pumps.

But what I was really hankering for, of course, was something like this:

Because if you're gonna go Dior-inspired, my friends, go big or go home, right?

First I tried a full-on Dior homage:


The shoes are my Michael Kors Bad Girl shoes, the blouse is random but great white cotton number, and the skirt & hat are both vintage. We all know I'm a freak for tulle, and when I saw this skirt in a vintage store several years ago, well, I like to lost my mind, as we say around here. Because not only does it look wonderful, but you can do this:

Wheeeeeeeee!!!

After establishing that I like the bustier over a blouse I wanted to play with the transparency idea a little more, so I tried this:

This is the DIY project I posted about not long ago -- the lace top whose sleeves I cut off. I like this a lot, too, I like the play of the two different kinds of lace together.

Being the kind of person I am, I happen to have more than one tulle skirt in my closet. (Yeah, I know, I'm a freak.)

(This called for different shoes, of course. Pinkish-gold glitter Pedro Garcia pumps. Love these shoes.)

So I gave it a whirl. I'm less crazy about this for some reason, but I wanted to shoot for some of the transparency in the skirt, like in this look

So I put a black half-slip under the skirt:


This is a little less successful, I think. The dark slip read better in the mirror than it does in the photos, but it still looks more like a mistake than a choice, I think.

There was one more thing I wanted to try:

This is a vintage crinoline that I've had for quite a while. I don't have a black garter belt, and the shorter layer underneath is a shortened slip, not tap pants, but I think this is pretty close. Honestly, I really love this. I was this close to wearing it to the Austin Fashion Week Awards Sunday night (about which more later, but here's my capsule review: "Oh, dear.") but it was, as it has been for seemingly years this summer, incredibly hot and I really didn't want to deal with that bustier in 105º heat.

So there you have it. What do you think? Any looks that particularly speak to you?



Images: Style Spy, Style.com